How to Manage Your At-Home Work Life
The advantages of at-home work, including flexible hours, competitive pay, and the ability to obtain an income without adhering to a dress code or commuting to an office, make working from home attractive option for many individuals.
If you plan to pursue a career working from home as an online content writer, it is important to take the time to create a strategy that will allow you to maximize your productivity, meet all work related and lifestyle related deadlines and obligations, and properly combine your at-home work schedule with your existing lifestyle.
Creating an At-Home Work Schedule
If you have never worked from home as a content writer in the past, you may be surprised to find that many online content companies allow you to create your own work schedule. Although you will likely be required to meet certain deadlines for most projects, the ways in which you spend your time up to those deadlines is largely up to you to manage. The freedom to create your own schedule is certainly an advantage of maintaining an at-home work life, especially for those with busy work and school schedules already in place.
However, this freedom can also cause problems for individuals who are accustomed to receiving constant direction and supervision from their superiors as they work. To alleviate these problems, you should create an at-home work schedule that incorporates work and mandatory responsibilities while allowing time for family and friends.
Many at-home content writers are also college students. If this is the case for you, it is a good idea to review your class schedule to find blocks of time that you can free up for content writing. For example, a two hour break in between classes might provide an ideal opportunity to settle in and get some content written.
The most important thing about creating an at-home work schedule is allocating certain blocks of time throughout the week to your work and diligently sticking to that schedule. Your schedule might become more flexible once you achieve a level of discipline that allows you to shift around your work hours and still meet all your deadlines.
Minimizing Distractions
One of the biggest disadvantages of your at-home work life will be the temptation to become consumed by distractions. This is especially true of those who live with roommates or have children or significant others who are also at home while you’re working.
Since you’ll likely be performing the majority of your work online on a computer, you’ll need to resist the temptation to visit non-work-related websites. Other sources of unnecessary information or entertainment, such as televisions, should be kept off while you’re working.
While you’re working, it can be useful to think of your home as a professional work environment. If at all possible, it can be very productive to do all of your work in a private room, such as a home office, as opposed to a common room where others may be coming or going.
Maintaining the Proper Motivation
Since you’ll rarely be directly supervised while working at home, it’s crucial to motivate yourself to work. Many online content companies set weekly or daily quotas for their at-home workers. If this is the case, failing to meet a quota could result in disciplinary action, or even your termination from the company. This alone should serve as motivation to meet your deadlines.
If the company for which you work allows you to turn in as little or as much work as you’d like each day, you may find it beneficial to set daily or weekly goals for yourself. Continue to work until you’ve met this goal, which may consist of a certain word count or payment amount that you’ll receive.